Just a Bit Better
by SpokenShepard
Summary: It's been 200 years, and she only has one goal: make the world just a bit better; what Lee can't decide on is for who. A collection of shorts for my Sole Survivor, Lee McClain. Originally posted on AO3 and transferred over here as needed,
1. Chapter 1

"To be fair, the car blowing up was an accident," Lee offers the men a half smile, kicking at a still-smoking wheelhouse, "mostly."

But the previous explosion isn't what has Hancock, MacCready, and Danse all staring at the woman as she considers the warped piece of metal her foot currently rests on.

One of them is rendered speechless because he can't decide whether it's the Jet or the dying fire that gives Lee the glow that seems to catch her short hair and turn the deep brown into a red mahogany, framing her against the blackened crater where the Fat Man had just taken its metallic victim; whatever it is, _damn_.

The next is completely lost in her half smile, same shade of maroon as the ghoul next to him, just fucking _this much_ on the side of amused to make him think that she has a wild streak, even if it is buried under a mountain of angelic. He had suspected her of smart-assery before though, like when she said 'Nice rifle there, princess, but I betcha mines bigger," before leveling her scope at a feral some ways down their makeshift range.

The third is dumbfounded by her power, her lithe figure that no, he doesn't notice. He can't. But perhaps he can appreciate how, with her hip cocked out and a hand braced on the curve, a goddess of war would be an appropriate metaphor if such things still existed now. Maybe they do, with her standing there.

"Come on," Lee slings her rifle across her back and starts off across the drive-in, all focus and determination once more, "fan out. Thinkin' this might not be a bad place for a settlement."

One by one, the men shake themselves, shooting sideways glances at one another that are equal parts suspicion and a silent agreement to stay quiet. Besides, Lee is right: the Starlight Drive-in would make a nice home.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a bet going around the Drive-in.

Valentine was the pot-keeper until someone was discovered to have won, because they all assumed he was the most wrong. MacCready started it with a half-assed comment one night at supper when Lee wasn't there. Hancock took him up on it, and the first twenty caps were laid down. Then, Piper threw in her guess, and ten more caps; Cait followed suit the next morning. Preston was so insistent he was right that they forced him to put his money where his mouth was. Curie denied participation, but insisted they informed her of the results for 'scientific purposes', and Danse was eventually roped into the betting when his trained judgement was called into question.

Dogmeat, when prompted, barked.

And so, the total pot climbed to 170 caps; a sizeable amount that they all are itching to get their hands on. For a week, the betters are content to wait patiently, so sure are they that their answer will come up in casual conversation as Lee lingers around to help fortify and furnish the Drive-in - only it doesn't, and she's leaving the next morning for Diamond City with Strong at her heels.

"Hey, Boss, mind if I ask you something?"

MacCready is the one who gives in to temptation.

Lee looks up from her place by their cooking fire, where a radroach roasts on a spit over a bubbling pot of 'stag stew. As casually as possible, Piper and Cait swivel towards the conversation on their bar stools, while Valentine and Curie stop their discussion abruptly; Danse and Preston set aside their rifles.

"Go-" Lee blinks, her brow furrowing at all of them, then continues, slower this time, "Go ahead... I think."

MacCready dives right in: "Where are you from?"

"Why?" She asks with a smile, but there's a hesitation behind the word that leaves her room for adjustment, should she need it.

"We have a bet going," he explains, "because we can't figure it out. Your accent is... well, it's weird."

"I assume you mean you've never heard it?" She laughs, and they all give some sort of confirmation by way of nod or monosyllable. "That's easy to explain. I was born down in the Gulf Commonwealth, which explains the occasional 'g' drop, but I joined the Marines after learning a second language, a few years before the war. Learned six more in my time as a translator, then a polyglot-specified lawyer, so..." Lee waves her hands, "that's why I don't sound southern all the time. Each language requires - _required_ its own accent to sound native, so I became a hodgepodge."

The fire crackles in the wake of her explanation, and Piper absently spins herself on the stool. "Wait, that makes it, what? Eight? You speak _eight_ languages?!"

" _Spoke_ ," Lee promptly corrects her with a hushed tone. "I _spoke_ eight languages. Now, I'd be surprised if even three of them existed somewhere. Like in this area, there's plenty of English, but no German. So, what does that mean? That _not one_ German speaker got to a vault? Then again," she bites her finger, staring into the fire. Her ruminations are almost mumbled now, she's so lost in her thoughts. "It could make sense, what with all the civil strife..."

They let her linger as their meal is distributed, and despite the unfamiliar ingredients, Lee turns out to be a half-decent cook. It's into his second bowl when MacCready nonchalantly leans over to Valentine.

"What?" the synth asks slowly.

"I won."

"Nuh-uh," Hancock says, "I do believe she said Gulf, brother, and you said Southeast."

"Oh, come on! The rest of you were up north!"

"Give him the money," Lee says, standing, stretching like a cat before she picks up her pipe pistol and makes her way to her sleeping bag at the top of the diner's tower, where the projector would have been years and years ago. "Man's damn close."


	3. Chapter 3

Lee flings her legs out the window, finding purchase on the foot-wide ledge of detailing that runs around the thinnest part of the projection tower. A blanket follows her, and she sticks her arms out wide like gymnasts used to, traveling step by careful step to the front of the tower, facing the wooden and wilting movie screen. Dim lights burn behind the peeling edges of plywood, signaling Cait's presence at the top, and Curie's somewhere further down towards the middle.

Settling in on the ledge with the scraggly woolen quilt she'd bothered to pull off her bed - the old one, her and Nate's before the war - is no easy task, but Lee manages. She tilts her head back against the cool metal building, watching as Preston and Piper head off to their beds in the scrap metal shacks their party had erected over the course of the past week. Danse draws first watch like he does on most nights and stations himself at the front gate. She can't see Hancock from her perch; maybe he found some quiet place to take his final hits of jet before passing out.

Safe and sound, for now at least. Her eyes fall to MacCready, who hasn't moved from his introspective stance by the dying fire, and her thoughts soon follow, winding towards his sudden question.

Her companions had a bet about her. Surely she isn't so mysterious as to warrant a bet, hm? True, there had never been much discussion about Lee's past in the four months since she'd emerged from Vault 111, but the lack is warranted in her eyes: she's been busy, consistently on the move, finding herself pulled into the wasteland of the Commonwealth head first. Strange things exist now - machines that look like humans, could be human for all she knows; factions like the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, the Railroad, and...

Lee thumps her head against the cool exterior of the tower. She doesn't want to think about them. The very idea of them makes her lose her temper, and she refuses to do so; not until she finds them.

But the bet... Christ, it shouldn't matter where she's from, and not in a "leave my past alone or I'll go deathclaw on your ass" kind of way; it's more of a "we're all here now, so why does it matter?". They're all just survivors trying to do exactly that: survive.

Deep down, Lee knows she's wrong. She sees her error in the way Preston looks to her for orders, hears it when MacCready calls her 'Boss', and finds it in a desperate settler's voice because they were told she was someone they could turn to. Lee has managed to make herself important in this forsaken wasteland, when in reality she's just herself. Just Lee McClain.  
God help her the day they realize that.

When she looks back down on the Drive-in, MacCready is gone, his duster slung over the back of a lawn chair. Lee closes her eyes and listens; gentle footsteps on the stairs far below, growing more purposeful as they reach the top so as to announce his presence.

Lee glances up, and MacCready is looking back at her, leaning on the sill of a cracked window directly above. His hat shades his eyes.

"Hey Boss," he nods, and she winces at her mistake.

"Hey yourself," Lee smiles, "care to come on out?"

"Yeah, right..." MacCready glances at the ground, "'cause I just love heights."

"In that case, you're not invited anymore."

"No complaints here," he says, and then they both turn out to watch as the moon crests over the edge of the drive-in screen. The lights within are extinguished by now, and with the obstruction removed, the sky behind the screen ignites.

Lee had seen stars before the Great War, but frankly she never expected to see them again after surfacing from the vault - despite the passage of time, surely nuclear fallout wouldn't rend the sky that clear. Her first night though, spent on a decrepit couch in Sanctuary and listening to the gentle whir of Codsworth from the other room, gave her a shock. Through the caved in roof, beyond the construction beams and limp shingles, she saw billions of cosmic lights, more than she could have ever fathomed 200 years ago, let alone see. They stretched from horizon to horizon, and stayed even while she blinked and shook her head in disbelief, trying to relieve herself of what must be an illusion.

In that instant, Lee had suddenly felt very small, acutely human, and she thought those two feelings were lost on her forever, much like the stars.

"So, why come up here?"

Lee starts, glancing up at MacCready once again. Does he mean... "What?"

"Up here," his hand pats the window sill. "Plenty of beds downstairs."

"Oh," she breathes a sigh of relief, "I don't know. Best sight lines, I suppose."

"Danse has first watch tonight," MacCready says, pointing to the power armor by the front gate that just so happens to contain a man as well.

"I noticed."

"It'll take at least a deathclaw to bring him down."

Lee tilts a grin towards MacCready. She'll go to bed when MacCready straight up tells her to; until then... "But where'll I get my target practice, Princess?"

He laughs, really laughs as if what she said is honest-to-God funny and he isn't just humoring her sass. "If your shooting gets any more sharp, Boss, we're all in trouble. Can only think of one person with a better shot."

"Oh?" she feigns ignorance, "And who might that be?"

"Why, yours truly, of course!"

"One of these days," Lee stretches, arching her arms overhead, "we're gonna have to pony up and test these claims of ours."

"Moving target or stationary?"

The serious note in MacCready's voice makes her blink up at him. The mercenary considers sharpshooting a religion, she knows, but Lee never thought she would have what little exists of MacCready's professionalism turned towards her.

"Moving," she decides, "ferals."

"Concord's full of 'em. Decent perches, too."

"Rifles?"

"Silenced .38, passed back and forth."

"Long range scope."

"Fair enough."

"After I get back from Diamond City, we'll cut out some time," Lee assures MacCready, nudging his hat with the tip of her fingers. He grins, situates his hat back where he prefers it, then claps her on the shoulder, turning away from the window.

"Night, Boss!"

Lee pulls her knees to her chest, resting her temple against them. She's still not tired. "G'night, Princess."


End file.
